Saturday, March 10, 2012

God save us from atheist whining

A US campaign encouraging atheists ‘out of the closet’ is fuelled more by victim culture than secularist principles

An atheist association’s decision to take their latest billboard campaign to the heart of Muslim and Jewish enclaves in New York and New Jersey seems like an outright provocation. ‘You know it’s a myth… and you have a choice’, the billboards erected on Monday say - in Arabic, Hebrew and English.

But Dave Silverman, the president of American Atheists, claims the aim is not to stir up tension but to reach out to non-believers who feel isolated and beleaguered because they are surrounded by devout people. He and his fellow atheists want to encourage Americans to ‘come out’, something that is, of course, most closely associated with gays and lesbians. The billboards are also an advertisement for the Reason Rally, to be held in Washington DC later this month. According to its website, the goal of this gathering is ‘to encourage attendees… to come out of the closet as secular Americans, or supporters of secular equality’.

This idea that closet atheists need to be coaxed out into the open, and that they need to claim the right to rally together as proud non-believers, has become a central tenet of the ‘new atheist’ movement. The approach comes across as a curious blend of therapeutic thinking and fearmongering, and it is expressed with a kind of fervour that would not be altogether alien to the deeply devout. Silverman, for instance, believes that the Christian right ‘has unleashed an unparalleled slew of efforts aimed at Christianising the country’. The same kind of shrillness is heard among those religious people who imagine that atheists are tearing down the social fabric of America and are conducting a ‘war on religion’.

In an article outlining the importance of coming out, Silverman speaks of the ‘fear of rejection’, the ‘shame’ and the ‘mental and physical’ toll experienced by closet atheists. Admitting you’re a non-believer is, Silverman says, ‘the first step’, but he implores readers also to be ‘proud, open, honest’ atheists and not ‘another closeted victim of the Christian right’. The advice here reads like a 12-step programme for people recovering from religion. Rather than a positive clarion call for secular values, this is a self-help scheme for people who see themselves as traumatised abuse-victims.

But are Silverman’s sentiments even borne out by reality? Are atheists really a beleaguered minority in the US? Is it really a great taboo today to profess that you do not believe in God?

The so-called ‘new atheism’ movement has been headed up by esteemed writers like Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens, and supported by famous people like Bill Maher, Tim Minchin and - unsurprisingly - the band Bad Religion. In other words, this is an outspoken crowd that does not need to cower in fear or meet behind closed doors. The Reason Rally will take place on the Mall, for god’s sake, on the doorsteps of the US political establishment.

No doubt there are Americans growing up in religious communities who do not feel like they belong there. Some of these communities are very closed off, including the Jewish orthodox neighbourhood in Williamsburg, Brooklyn where the American Atheists are putting up their signs. And no doubt many politicians are antagonistic to the idea of completely separating church and state. But atheists are not being persecuted for denying the existence of God or prevented from holding secular values and expressing them in public. Hard as it may be from a personal point of view, even Jews in Williamsburg are free to leave the orthodox life behind.

American Atheists and other supporters of the Reason Rally say they want to promote secular values. But in asserting that they are beleaguered and ought to forge a sense of togetherness based on that, they reveal that their true roots lie in therapy culture and in its relative - identity politics. Of course, non-belief, self-victimisation and religion-bashing make for a pretty negative and weak ground for common identification.

It seems, in fact, that the very thing that irks today’s atheists about religious people is that they have a strong, unifying vision of a good society and that they are willing to live by it, well, religiously. But those of us interested in advancing a human-centred vision of the future would do better focusing on important things like wealth creation, liberty, scientific advancement and creating great art. With these things comes enlightenment. With plastering religious areas with insulting billboards and attending feelgood events in DC come smugness and cheap thrills. The Reason Rally really isn’t worth coming out for.

£70,000 for a British warden who slipped and fell on ice ... while putting up 'beware of ice' signs

As the park warden picked his way through the snow and ice he should have known every step was a health hazard. After all, the signs he was putting up all around the park said so. ‘Be careful in the ice and snow,’ they boomed in big bold letters. But somehow the warden hadn’t got the message himself.

As he selected the best locations for the warning alerts, he went head over heels on the icy ground, badly hurting his back, neck, wrist and arms.

Now his council bosses, who had no doubt sent him on his mission with the aim of preventing compensation claims, are facing a £70,000 claim from one of their own. It seems health and safety can be downright dangerous at times. Not to mention expensive.

Leicester council has agreed to settle the case out of court after admitting the accident could have been prevented. The final payout has yet to be decided but £70,000 has been set aside to compensate the unnamed park warden and cover legal fees.

So how could the warden’s spectacular slip-up be blamed on the council? The recent purchase of 150 pairs of slip-on shoes with studded soles might be a clue. The council has ordered the winter weather shoes, which cost £13 each, in the hope of avoiding any more such injuries to outdoor workers. The accident came to light in a report from the council’s ‘risk committee’ into action it has taken to avoid expensive compensation claims.

The report explains that, under the Employers’ Liability Act, councils are obliged to ‘provide all necessary equipment for staff to safely carry out their role’. And since the council spent £1,950 buying ‘snow/ice traction aids’ (snow shoes to the rest of us), there have been no more workers taking a tumble in wintry conditions.

The prevention doesn’t stop there. The council has also spent £7,500 on tracking devices for its fleet of gritters, to monitor which of the city’s roads have been gritted.

That initiative followed a claim from a member of the public who slipped and broke an arm. The council claimed the road had been gritted but couldn’t prove it and ended up having to pay out £16,000. The tracking devices have helped successfully defend four similar claims since then.

Leicester council would not say where the warning sign accident happened or whether the warden was still an employee. Last year it revealed it had paid £356,000 in compensation to 61 staff since 2008, for accidents ranging from broken teeth to sore backs.

Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: ‘Councils and other large organisations have increasingly found themselves targeted by lawyers who encourage people to make claims.

‘The Government needs to look at the best way to give those with genuine injuries access to justice, while deterring lawyers who are out to make a quick buck.’

In the atmosphere of press unfreedom created around Britain's Leveson Inquiry, it seems ‘the public interest’ is now to be defined by… the London Metropolitan Police

What is meant by reporting in ‘the public interest’, and who is to define it? We are told that this is one of the big questions facing Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry into the British press. Now, it appears, we have an answer. In the non-brave new world of press unfreedom that the Leveson Inquiry is helping to create, the ‘public interest’ is apparently to be defined for us by…. the Metropolitan Police.

Last week Leveson started the second phase of his inquisition into the crimes against humanity, sorry, the ‘culture and ethics’, of the tabloid press, which is supposed to deal with relations between the media and the police. The first star witness was Sue Akers, deputy assistant commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police, in charge of the investigation into alleged criminal acts by newspapers. She baldly announced to Leveson and the world that there had been ‘a culture at the Sun of illegal payments [to police and public officials] and systems created to facilitate those payments’.

Never mind that the 11 Sun journalists and executives arrested on suspicion of bribing public officials have not even been charged with, let alone convicted of, any such offence. DAC Akers of the Yard apparently felt free to declare that all and sundry at the Sun had effectively been found guilty by a jury of one good woman and true (her).

Worse, the pious DAC indicated, this supposed corruption had not been carried out in the cause of good journalism: ‘The vast majority of the disclosures made [by officials] have led to stories which I would describe as salacious gossip, not what I would describe as being remotely in the public interest.’

The notion of senior uniforms ruling on what is ‘remotely in the public interest’, and thus what the press should and should not be reporting, might normally be associated with a nice little police state. Yet in the UK, the anti-tabloid atmosphere around the Leveson Inquiry has now reached the point where a police chief can try to lay down the law on what information we should be allowed to read and hear, drawing a line between information published as ‘salacious gossip’ (tabloid journalism, bad, open to prosecution) and stories in ‘the public interest’ (quality journalism, good, potentially justified). When did the Old Bill take on the new powers to police the minds of tabloid journalists and their readers?

This snobbish division between the ‘Goodies’ and the alleged ‘Baddies’ of the British press (to borrow Hugh Grant’s infantile phraseology) runs right through the Leveson debate about regulation. Now it has been given the Metropolitan Police seal of approval. Goodbye Press Complaints Commission, hello deputy assistant commissioner?

Many concerns have been expressed about ‘unhealthy’ and ‘too close’ relations between senior police officers and the Murdoch press. Yet those concerns are being exploited to justify a far more dangerous relationship, one where rather than the media poking around in police business, the Met take a close interest in the affairs of the press – with the collaboration of newspaper management and the support of crusading journalists.

Scotland Yard has been embarrassed by criticism of the Met’s early conduct of the phone-hacking investigation, and revelations about links to the press which led to the resignation of its commissioner. Now the Met’s new leadership is trying to reassert the Force’s moral authority by pursuing a zealous campaign against the evil tabloids that allegedly besmirched the honour of naive and innocent police chiefs.

In this surreal atmosphere, Trevor Kavanagh of the Sun estimates that the police war on the heinous atrocities of hacking phone messages and buying information from public officials has now become the largest-scale investigation in British criminal history. Leading lights among Kavanagh’s fellow Sun journalists have been arrested in dawn raids while police squads tear up their floorboards. Meanwhile News Corp’s own Management and Standards Committee has been tearing up the book on protecting journalists and their sources, handing over millions of emails and internal documents to the Met and setting up the Sun’s own people for arrest. So much for the ‘ethical’ backlash against bad practice in the press.

These are dangerous developments in the policing of a free press, the like of which have not been seen in recent times. Yet so shrunken is the esteem in which press freedom is held in the UK today that even supposedly liberal-minded journalists have effectively turned into police cheerleaders. Take Nick Davies, the crusading Guardian reporter whose investigations are credited with bringing the phone-hacking scandal to light. After DAC Akers’ appearance before Leveson last week, Davies wrote correctly characterising the inquiry as a ‘defining power struggle’ between the state and the press. Yet he came out as an Akers backer in that struggle. So blinded are high-minded journalists by anti-tabloid bigotry and Murdoch-phobia today, many seem to have lost sight of the simple truth that state encroachment is far more dangerous to a free press than the most debased abuse of such freedom by journalists could be.

There are some forgotten principles that need to be reintroduced into this debate. For instance, that the freedom of the press, like any aspect of free speech, is not divisible or something that can be rationed out only to the ‘Goodies’. That it should not be up to a deputy assistant commissioner – or indeed a Lord Justice – to decree what is or is not in the ‘public interest’ to publish; that is a matter for the public to decide, on the basis of all the information that is freely presented to them. And that anybody with an ounce of feeling for liberty should strive for all they are worth to get the police, and the judges, out of the debate about the future of the press.

Meanwhile, Nick Davies has just been announced as the winner of the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism. According to the Guardian report of their man’s triumph, ‘The organising committee, in its citation, praised Davies’ “dogged and lonely reporting”, the impact of which forced “a humbled Rupert Murdoch” to close the News of the World…’ Thus a journalist wins a top prize for helping to close down a newspaper, while a senior cop is praised for laying down the law on what the press should be free to publish. Welcome to the alternative unfree universe of Planet Leveson.

Because George Negus [white male] hasn't come under as much scrutiny for his comments on "The Circle" TV programme as Yumi Stynes [half-Japanese female].

The fact that Stynes and Negus made different comments (etc.) doesn't count, apparently, though both made derogatory remaks about an Australian hero soldier

John Birmingham

It is possible, if only just, to imagine that the hateswarm engulfing Yumi Stynes this week has nothing to do with her being an attractive Asian woman, but unfortunately my imagination doesn’t stretch that far. So I’m gonna say it – most of the vitriol being spewed in her face over the comments she made about Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith on The Circle are motivated by racism, gender and jealousy.

Yumi Stynes and George Negus disgraced themselves when they mocked the VC winner Roberts-Smith in a seriously ill-considered grab for a couple of cheap laughs. What they did was wrong and quite literally shameful. Media careers have been extinguished by much lesser offences. Giles Hardie wrote a great piece explaining how such mistakes are often made, not just on live TV, but at barbecues, bars and in the tea rooms of millions of workplaces every day. He explained their oafish behaviour without excusing it, because there is no excusing it.

But while those two particular citizens are probably wallowing in their shame – and I say ‘probably’ because Negus has a hide much thicker and tougher than even the giant Walrus of Stupid – some of the deranged responses directed at Stynes in particular are appalling and immeasurably more shameful than her original sin. She is being attacked with a savage and terrible glee that is largely absent from the criticism of Negus.

Producers are removing or disallowing any comments on The Circle’s Facebook page that go beyond reasonable criticism. Sexual threats and insults, threats against Stynes’ family, misspelled and misogynistic abuse (so odd, how those two often go together), they’re all being zapped. But there is no shutting down the interwebz and a search on Twitter for Stynes and Negus finds thousands of comments, some of them quite level-headed and judicious critiques of their foolishness, but many, many of them not. Many, indeed, present with an air of menace and promised violence that would go a long way towards securing Stynes the protection of the law, if she chose to seek it.

Why the difference? I asked this, not entirely seriously, on the twitterz and farcebuck the other day, as the shrieking of the horde reached an ugly, feral pitch. “I wonder why the hatin' on Yumi Stynes is so much hatier than the hatin' on George Negus? What possible difference might there be?”

Only one respondent actually replied with any sort of coherent defence of the lynching of Stynes, an irregular drop-in here at the Instrument, Lobes, who wrote on Facebook that, Stynes' comments were worse "for a start". She has achieved little since she was a contest winner VJ on Foxtel, he argued, whereas at least Negus has had a career of some accomplishment. "Saying that though, they are both retards*, but she definitely deserved it more… The initial comment was made by Stynes about BRS being brainless. She set the tone and Negus followed.”

I doubted that the mob assaulting Stynes had parsed the original exchange so minutely, and Lobes replied, “I see where you are coming from JB, and believe me I do not share the sentiment that seems to motivate those thousands. But just because you take a different path does not preclude you from arriving at the same conclusion.”

Why delve into these individual responses? Because for better or worse they at least characterise some of the moderate and more considered ‘debate’ that has flowed from Stynes’ and Negus’ abysmal misjudgment.

For the most part, though, it’s been a feeding frenzy, with the worst of our natures on display. The only person to come out of this with their integrity unsullied is Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith who graciously accepted the apologies of Negus and Stynes and moved on. He doesn’t need the army of trolls and orcs which has come boiling out of the lower levels of internet hell to defend him. The sick-making abuse and threats of violence they’ve heaped on Stynes, and the contrast with the relatively light treatment of Negus – in spite of his shark’s tooth amulet and porno mo – is a disgusting example of double standards and cowardice.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here